Digging or garden shovels for manually excavating earth are widely known in the art. Generally, digging shovels for excavating earth are configured differently than scooping shovels for scooping loose materials (e.g., snow and grain shovels). For example, digging shovels often have a rounded, pointed, or otherwise non-straight leading edge in plan view (e.g., angled with respect to digging motion) and scooping shovels have a substantially straight leading edge in plan view (e.g., perpendicular with respect to scooping motion). Typically, digging shovels include a broad blade (e.g., head) attached to a handle. The blade usually includes a leading edge designed to penetrate the earth (e.g., soil, dirt, clay, gravel, sand, etc.) and a curved portion designed to retain earth thereon. For ease in penetrating the earth and cutting through particularly dense objects often embedded in the earth (e.g., roots, rocks, clods, etc.), the leading edge of most digging shovels is relatively sharp and the profile of most digging shovels is shallow or thin. Conventional shovels may be useful for cutting dense objects intended to be cut. However, conventional shovels can be prone to cutting dense objects not intended to be cut.
To comply with common utility safety regulations, blue stake markers (or similar indicators) are embedded in the ground by utility companies to indicate the presence of utility lines, such as gas lines, cable lines, water lines, and the like. As used herein, such utility lines are categorized as dense objects. Generally, utility safety regulations restrict the use of automated equipment within a certain area or zone about the markers to prevent inadvertent puncturing of the utility lines. In certain locations, the safety zone is defined as a circle with a regulated radius (e.g., two feet) that is concentric with the markers. Because use of automated equipment is restricted, only hand tools, such as conventional digging shovels, are allowed to excavate earth within the restricted area around the markers. Although conventional digging shovels may be safer than automated equipment, due to their relatively sharp leading edges and shallow profile, conventional shovels still are susceptible to inadvertently puncturing utility lines or dense objects even when operators of the shovels are careful.
Additionally, the blade of most conventional digging shovels is made from a metal or metal alloy, such as steel. Some metal blades may be desirable in certain applications due to their strength, cutting ability, speed, and durability. However, the use of metal blades may be disadvantageous in other applications. For example, metals and metal alloys are particularly porous materials. Accordingly, metal blades are not self-lubricating (e.g., non-sticking). As a result, excavated earth tends to stick to metal blades. Also, metal blades are susceptible to sparking when the blades come into contact with certain objects, such as rocks or pipes. Sparks occurring within the restricted area around utility markers are particularly dangerous when one or more of the utility lines passing through the restricted area contains a flammable substance, such as natural gas or propane.